It’s official: The Pemberton Festival will not be back this year.

Live Nation has confirmed they don’t have enough time to plan or book performers for the music event, which made its debut last summer in the small town north of Vancouver.

“We will not produce the Pemberton Festival this summer due to the fact that the necessary permits were approved too late in the year for us to effectively book talent,” the concert promoter in a statement. “We are moving forward and focusing on 2010.”

Live Nation has retained the rights to use the Pemberton site for a festival for nine more years.

The inaugural three-day event in July drew 40,000 fans with big-name acts including Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, the Tragically Hip and Jay-Z.

While it was a success from a music standpoint, the festival faced logistical problems with traffic jams, infrastructure and security.

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Organizers say time — or rather, a lack of it — may be a factor against bringing the Pemberton Festival back to British Columbia in 2009.

The province’s Agricultural Land Commission gave concert promoter Live Nation permission earlier this week to use the farmland in Pemberton again as its festival site next year.

But the decision may have come too late for organizers, who say they do not know if they have enough time to pull together sponsorships and suppliers for the three-day music festival.

Shane Bourbonnais, Pemberton’s head organizer, told the Globe and Mail newspaper that there is a “less than 50 per cent” chance the event will happen next year.

A decision will be made in the next few weeks.

The inaugural event in July featured more than 120 artists, including Coldplay, Jay-Z and Nine Inch Nails, and drew more than 40,000 people.

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